EILEEN HULSE

After an initial career as a teacher, the soprano Eileen Hulse studied at the National Opera Studio, was accepted by YCAT and rapidly made her mark as one of Britain’s leading coloratura sopranos. She travelled extensively with the rôle of Flora in The Turn of the Screw, performing at La Fenice, the Kirov, Bolshoy, and the Music Centre Los Angeles. Other more standard rôles include Constanze and Blonde (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), the Queen of the Night and Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Madame Herz (Der Schauspieldirektor), and Fiakermilli (Arabella), among others. She has also been very involved with contemporary opera, appearing as The Maid in Thomas Adès’s first opera, Powder Her Face, with the Vlaamse Opera and in the première of his second opera, The Tempest, with the stratospheric rôle Ariel. Other world premières include Mother in Michael Berkeley’s Baa Baa Black Sheep, von Bose’s 63 Dream Palace, and Oliver Knussen’s Higgelty Piggelty Pop. Opera videos include Baa Baa Black Sheep with Opera North and Rusalka with English National Opera. Eileen Hulse has performed extensively on the concert platform both at home and abroad. She has appeared several times at the Proms, the first time singing Glière’s Concerto for Coloratura Soprano and Orchestra with Vladimir Ashkenazy conducting, and returning to sing the equally stratospheric In Alium of John Tavener. She has since recorded both works. A work that she has performed frequently in both its piano and orchestral versions is the cycle, Songs of the Fairytale Princess by Szymanowski, with orchestras conducted by Simon Rattle, Martyn Brabbins and Sian Edwards, each time recorded for radio. In the piano version she has performed them with John Constable, Paul Turner and Ian Burnside.